La Jolla Kayak Review

DON'T OVER BOOK PEOPLE!!! Rented a single kayak, not part of a tour, and the wait was 2.5 hours not 1 hour which was stated. Their explanation was they double booked.

The guides were friendly and laid back, but they held the group waiting for one person so we didn't leave until almost 20 minutes after we were supposed to.

There's no guarantee of getting in caves or seeing whales but we had an amazing time. The two tour guides were funny and knowledgeable. We had dolphins pop up right in front of us too!

Very nice and organized staff. Memorable, fun experience.

Sea caves tour. 2 hours + . A bit too much sitting around and not enough paddling for my tastes, but overall the information is interesting and the caves we fun for the few minutes we were in there. Fun tour guides.

Great San Diego activity. The staff was friendly and helpful. The equipment is average. The location is great.

Super chill place, with good staff. I rented snorkeling gear. The gear was low quality but you get a great price. Free lockers for belongings and changing rooms but no showers. They sell other items too if you forget. Not sure I'll come back again having used their gear but it's a good first place to start if you've never home snorkeling.

Taylor was an amazing tour guide and our girls day was a HUGE success! Thank you La Jolla Kayak!!

You can't go wrong kayaking and snorkeling in the cove but I thought taking the kayak snorkel tour added no value over just renting equipment

We had a wonderful tour guide I really wish I could remember his name he was very informative and had great knowledge of the area he gave us a great tour. The equipment is in great shape and the price was great

Big Cat: If you do the guided tour, be prepared to paddle a long way out to sea.

My mom and I had a great time here. Everyone is super friendly and the kayak tour was fantastic. They took us out to a cave and allowed us to take photos with the sealions and other animals in the cave. They offer different size suits and life vests. Even kids can enjoy a kayak tour. It is reasonably priced too. Just watch out for the other kayak tours because I know we had a few run ins with them and I had a couple of different inexperienced kayakers bump into me as I was just sitting there waiting my turn to go into the cave.

We had very good time doing Kayak at La Jolla. Dolphins turned around us it was amazing. The staffs are very friendly and experienced.

The people there were great. Fun, nice and helpful, but they should be more transparent as a company when taking people's hard earned money to go snorkeling in waters where there is 4 foot visibility. We could not see anything and this was at 1pm when they had already been in these waters. I understand that you can't control mother nature just like when you go fishing but they knew going into this that we couldn't see anything.

Absolutely loved it .. loved our kayaking guides Megan and Frank they were so awesome and funny .. definitely coming back .. even though we go there late they were nice enough to help us catch up and didnt give us a hard time for being late .. thank you we will definitely be coming back and refering our friends

So much fun! Very informative guide. I was terrified, but I did it and we had a blast! Be prepared to get soaked. Make sure you bring a leash for your glasses.

Had a blast!!! Tour guides were very helpful and funny always making sure we're having a great time. Great customer service and all around friendly and helpful staff.

If you are looking for something fun and easy for everyone, I highly recommend a kayak tour with La Jolla Kayak. Their staff is extremely friendly and informative of area. Thank you Alex and Shawn for a great experience!

Fun for the family! My 8 year old and I had the best time on a kayak tour of La Jolla! Great guides, beautiful surroundings

First time kayaking in this area. Highly recommend using this company. The guides are personable and have incredible knowledge both historically as well as of the geological land and marine biology of the waters and cliffs surrounding this natural habitat. Madeline and Sam were out guides. They absolutely love their jobs and have such passion in making sure every guest has a good time ... and are safe and we learned something along the way. The seas are generally calm and you can see from the photos that we saw sea life and great cave structures too! Love this!!! We will be back for sure.

Awesome time. Was a little bit colder but worth it. Did the kayaking and snorkeling.

This was an absolute blast!! If you've always wanted to kayak but are nervous about it, come to this place because they will teach you the basics and then guide you throughout the tour. On our tour, we got to see some sea lions, garibaldi fish, and some creatures on the bottom of a kelp root (sometimes you may even be able to catch a sight of some leopard sharks or a whale if you're really lucky). The gem of the tour was getting to go into one of the caves of La Jolla. It is absolutely breathtaking in there! You can choose between doing a two-person tandem kayak or a single, so it can be a fun activity to do with a friend. Danielle was an extremely informative and funny tour guide, and she so effortlessly made the experience even more worthwhile.

Loved our snorkel session with Omar! HIGHLY recommended. We will be repeat customers if we ever make it back out to La Jolla.

Had a great experience with Omar & Zac. They made the trip fun and dolphins at the end were a delight. Kayaks are ready to navigate even for a novice. Highly recommend.

Had a great time ocean kayaking with the guides from La Jolla Kayak. Great bunch of people work here. Very patient and very knowledgeable.

Had the best tour here in La Jolla beach all thanks to Josh! That man deserves a raise. Me and my girlfriend had an amazing time with him and learned a lot of things. Super outgoing and enthusiastic. If we were to do it again we d have to do it with him!

Wonderful exciting FUN
Best TOUR GUIDES!!

The crew made the experience easy, straightforward, and fun. Unlike many of the other rental places, LJK had our kayaks waiting for us at the beach. We saw several sea lions on the tour though no turtles or fish.

Beautiful location. Great tour guides! Loved seeing all the sea life and checking out the caves.

Great experience! Got a call the night before confirming my reservation for the tour first thing in the morning. Found parking pretty easily in the surrounding neighborhood. Staff was friendly and professional. Would have appreciated staff in the room with the life jackets starting conversations with us instead of awkwardly walking in and out of the room.
We did the sea caves tour. I've been on quite a few kayak tours across the US and Canada and this one was on par with the best of them. Our guides new lots of interesting stories about the landmarks on the coastline and were able to answer our questions about the marine life we saw. Paddling through one of the caves was great. We weren't "pushed" through as another reviewer said. We had a couple minutes inside and were surrounded by sea lions. It was very noisy with all the barking and I don't think anyone would want to endure that din for more than a minute or two. Besides cormorants, seagulls and sea lions we saw lots of different fish and 2 common dolphins.
On the way in to the beach the guides gave us a quick lesson on kayak surfing and my wife and I (we had a double kayak) caught 3 waves before tipping over on the last in knee-deep water. It was great!
I shopped around before going with La Jolla Kayak. They offered the cheapest tour rate on the day we were there. The sea cave tour is identical across all the tour companies setting off from that beach. If you go at low tide our guides said you probably won't be able to paddle through the cave. So check the tide times and make your reservation close to high tide.

In the la Jolla beach area, there were many stores providing rentals and a lot of water sports activities. But I choose this store since they seemed to be the biggest one.
Unfortunately, their service was not measured up to the size of the store. The receptionist who has a long blond hair seemed to be very young and immature. She was neither kind nor informative. She asked to sign the paper without any explanation. When I asked, then I realized it was about taking my own risk and being responsible for any kind of accident, which is pretty important thing to inform clients. Then, after changing clothes, our pack gathered and got a short orientation about the kayak tour. There were two staff members who were going to guide us. I was with my 70 years old mother and neither of guiders acknowledged that they have a senior client, which I thought, is pretty insensitive. Then, we failed to pass waves in off shore because my mother started to be panic (wave was much tougher than we expected) . So we had to come back. When I asked the same blond girl about our situation, she made a dirty look at me, which was pretty offensive. So I asked if they have any official policy about refund for client who failed to lunch a kayak. Then, I was referred to a guy next to her. And he explained basically they don t have any official policy but we can come back and try a different time, which was not possible for us. So I ended up negotiating renting two small boards for the initial price for the kayak tour, which was $79.
Overall, the receptionist was horrible, and the way they run services seems to expect unfortunate accidents in any time. At least, two staff members who guided us were not seems to have the appropriate level of awareness of safety issues. So please do not be fooled by their location or size.
The only reason I didn t give zero score is that the staff member who helped my kayak to lunch worked really hard pushing and guiding my kayak, which I still appreciate his efforts.

Super fun trip! Lexi was amazing and full of fun facts! She even paddled out of the way to pick up some trash in the ocean. My husband was sea sick and felt really embarrassed. Lexi was so sweet and got him a sprite as soon as we were back.

Great staff and guides here! Definitely go early. Like 10 am early : ) Lockers provided. Recommend bringing a towel and an extra shirt/shorts.

Eric and Grant were our tour guides today and they were FABULOUS!! We had so much fun. Thank you all for a great day!!

Clean, great staff....fast to get everything together and was off to the ocean for our kayak trip. In a nice area with lots of restaurants and stores was nice after we was done to have lunch and look around before heading back to our hotel. Definitely recommend. They have several tours to choose and was great experience. Short but pleasant walk up street to ocean where everything ready.

We had an amazing experience and our guides were so helpful!!

We rented kayaks with a large group. Everyone had a great time.

We had the best tour guide! He was friendly and knowledgeable, and even though I tipped the kayak twice when trying to get in, I never felt uncomfortable. The guide was supportive and truly helpful, and he didn't let me give up! I recommend taking the first tour of the day if possible. There were no crowds and our group was just us in a double kayak, the guide, and one other double kayak. The experience was personal and the sights were beautiful! We even were able to see some dolphins pretty close up. Amazing! Just a quick tip, don't expect to get to go in the caves. I am pretty sure that most of the time the conditions are too dangerous to enter. If you know ahead of time that you will for sure get to see the caves, but don't expect entry, then you will have a much better experience than feeling jilted about not getting to go in. Safety first!

Great guided tour into the caves, friendly staff, good readily available coupons, easy non-tour rentals, highly recommended.

Went kayaking. Get past waves to get out on the ocean was the hardest part. The guides I went with were totally AWESOME!

We had alot of fun. Favorite was seeing all the girabaldi swimming below us. Lots of information about la Jolla and the community from our guides.

Their waterproof phone cases are amazing! I bought one for $20 and it works better than any $80 case. I took this into the ocean and into pools and it didn't leak once. Also, the gear they offer is great. We got a great deal on rentals and got good advice for where to snorkel and where to eat. Thanks guys! UPDATE: I'm still using the waterproof phone case and it's been over two years. I've never had a leak and it floats on the water so I never worry about losing my phone. Literally everyone asks me where they can get one. UPDATE #2: It's been three years and still using the phone case. Hasn't leaked yet! UPDATE #3: it's been a long time...still use this thing like it's my life line. Has a special spot in storage and everything.

We paid over a $100 to basically rent snorkels. We did the snorkel tour of La Jolla shore for two hours. The tour guide informed us when we finally got to the beach that they would only be giving a tour for one hour, which was clearly unexpected as we paid for a two hour tour. However, once we got into the water there was no tour. They just walked us into the ocean and sat there while we snorkeled around. About half the group left immediately to do there own thing and the other half just waited for the two guides to lead us somewhere. When nothing happened after about 30 minutes, two ladies left frustrated. There wasn t anything to see in the water. We waited a bit longer and left, following the two tour guides as they left about an hour in to head back to shop. There website says that you ll see coral reefs and sea lions, but there was none. We left very disappointed.

Had a great time kayaking and snorkeling. Great guides.

We took the Original Kayak tour. Excellent service and great experience. Our tour guide, Patrick was awesome! He told us many different stories related to the region while Kayaking. We felt very safe even though it was our first time Kayaking. Definitely recommended!

Our guided tour with Adam, Andrew and Cam was a highlight of our week in San Diego. We learned about the wildlife and the area - but mostly, we just had a great time taking in the beauty. Thank you three for a wonderful experience.

Very expensive and very very crouched. The boy and the girl who guided us were there early 20's. She was having a nap during the "breaks". Every break or her or him, keep talking about the water life, about the lions, about the houses and surrounding,I find it very bed taste. Non of them was passionate about what they are talking about, they were like a robot repeating words without any emotions. It was very tensed and stressful to be around them. I strongly dislike it, when I get off the kayak I promise to myself "never again!". Yes you go under the rocks (on the edge of it, and you see the animals around, and you see a creepy persons coming down the rocks trying to snick into animals life's....You visit only 1 cave for about 30sec or a minute, and you must go out because there are so many others waiting to get in...And there's minimum onother 1/3 persons inside with you.
If you think that you may have contact with the nature and listen it's sound, this is not the case! You hear people screaming and talking and jumping and on time to time some animal "voice". And this was a cold day, no sun at all.

We had a great time, but they falsely advertised how long the tour would be. It was advertised as two hours, but they only took us out for one. We feel deceived.

Awesome people! Took some boards of the shelf just so we would have some to rent. Great people!

Well organized, fun introduction to sea kayaking. No too difficult. You might get dumped entering or leaving the beach through the surf, but the staff is there to help you. The boats and paddles are not super great but hey they are rentals.

Disappointed! arrived at the LA Jolla Cove an hour early drove around 30 minutes looking for parking finally found one 30 minutes later but the walk back to La Jolla Kayak was trending to be about another hour from where I parked. I called to request a refund and no refunds. In all fairness they did offer to reschedule but my whole day had already been planned. Wasted $90! Glad I didn't reserve Kayaks for the whole family, I could have lost over $200 easy.

Now in the email they do say try to arrive early because of parking but this parking situation was pretty bad and I ended up parking about 3 miles away (I was with my wife and 3 kids). Also no signs of any sort directing to Lajolla Kayak. I had to Google Map my walk to Lajolla Kayak.

My recommendation would be for Lajolla Kayak to offer some kind of shuttle service or something knowing parking is an issue. Maybe run a shuttle every 30 minutes or so to pick up customers forced to park so far away.

All that being said, we still had a great time at beautiful La Jolla Cove and later at Belmont Park (an awesome family attraction).

This place is great! We had Cameron and Eric as guides and they were so knowledgable and personable! Next time I go to La Jolla I'll be sure to do this tour again!

The staff was pretty awesome. The prices were great.

What a great experience! Beautiful, fun, a definite must do!

What a lot of fun! The staff is friendly! Cameron was an awesome tour guide! Very knowledgeable and helpful! Wrote down a list of other things for us to do after our kayak trip! He goes above and beyond! Kayaking was easy and fun! Cameron also kept us safe, which we appreciated. Not only do you get amazing views of La Jolla, the sea caves, sea lions etc from the water, Cameron gives you the history of La Jolla, which is interesting as well! Add this to your list of things to do in La Jolla!

I took my daughter here and we had a wonderful experience that we will remember for the rest of our lives. We had so much fun. I can't wait to go back. The guides were all incredible people who were extremely knowledgeable and incredibly friendly and helpful.

10/10 experience, snorkled in one of the caves. Kayaking was fun and a good workout.
Was lucky enough to see sharks and seals.
I do recommend that the company offer free sunscreen, seems a bit tight they wouldnt.

We rented stand up paddle boards from La Jolla Kayak. They were really easy to deal with and very laid back. It was fun to explore the cove ourselves, although, I highly recommend that you take a tour for your first time.

I was disappointed that the stand up paddle boards were the inflatable kind. It made it a little bit more difficult to balance since the board gave way under your feet, but it was still fun.

Stellar time with Frank and Darby. Definitely appreciate their knowledge and patience with us newbies. Definitely recommend!

Very fun! Definitely worth it! Friendly and knowledgeable tour guides!

Pretty dope, saw a sea lion, didn't spend much time in the caves but definitely got a workout getting there and back! The location is perfect for getting a beer before or after which I highly recommend (:

Went on a kayak snorkel tour with guide Ryan. Ryan was very knowledgeable about the ocean, wildlife and surrounding areas. Showed us awesome things on our snorkeling adventure including lobster, crazy fish and even a couple sharks. Ryan and his team made this such an amazing experience. 100% recommend this company and to request Ryan as your guide!

Amazing! We got to go into the caves and saw some HUGE sea lions. Great experience!

I can't say enough great things about this group. I went out on Sunday under the capable guidance of Rorey and Jacob. Look up cool in the dictionary and these two characters will come up. Their chill attitude coupled with safety mindedness made it easy for me to hit the waves for the first time with confidence. I also learned a lot about the history of the area which made the experience that much more enriching. I'm definitely coming back.

A fun way to spend a couple hours. We had a great time. The guides are fantastic!

Extremely friendly and knowledgeable staff. The bike tour with Shane was great!

This shop rocks, staff personable and professional. Kool clothing and accessories. The kayaking with these folks is a gem of an experience.

Not helpful, every other kayak rental company out there was helping people come back in, not this place! No direction or care. Would not recommend ever.

We had a great time. The staff were great, the water was warm, the sea lions were out. It was just the right start for a beginner.

Highly recommended.

Thank's for the tour!

Great kayak tour. Friendly knowledgeable guides. Would definitely book another tour with them.

We did the kayak and snorkel tour. We only saw some orange fish but we swam to a cave and there were sea lions everywhere! They were swimming right next to us and jumping into the air. The sea lions were probably my favorite part. I would definitely recommend this tour.

Super fun, friendly staff.. ignore the email that says you need arrive an hour early and earlier to find parking. You just have to be there 30 before you booked

Always a great experience with the tour guides here. They are quite knowledgeable about the area and are more than willing to offer up advice for what to do while visiting La Jolla.

Must do summer attraction in San Diego. Explore the La Jolla Shore by kayaking few hours.

It was an amazing experience. The staff was friendly and knowledgable. The tour and scenery was beautiful and interesting. 10/10 would go again.

This place rocks! We did a guided kayak tour with Lexi and had an amazing time. Definitely recommend any tour with these guys.

Really enjoyed this place and the people! My husband and I were very hesitant to book since he's visually impaired and I've had 8 knee surgeries, so we make for a slow couple. The tour guides Bo and Chris we're great, they let us do our own thing but kept constant eye on us just in case! When we got caught in a cave with some rough waves, Bo swam next to my husband till he could see! And honestly other than the rough waves it was an awesome trip!

Great experience. You could probably simply rent a kayak if you've already used a kayak before.